Maximilian Voloshin - Lunaria

O quiet pearl of heavens' quiet realm,
Oil lamp of dreams, of all conceptions mistress,
O crystal ball of magic irresistible,
O queen of waters, lover of the swell,

So greedily they grow and overwhelm
Enduring through my crowns of thorny thistles
To pale Diana, Hecate the Fierce,
The serpent dreams from your undrunken well.

Both bittersweet and paralyzing grim is
The diamond fever of your wrinkly grimace.
Your silica skin fades and reignites

A fear's face in space, forlorn and ashen,
A wail of pain eternalized in ice,
A hungry corpse of an unborn creation.

1.

O quiet pearl of heavens' quiet realm
Appearing in the fur of snow flurry!
All faces in your light are young and floral,
The charms of belladonna ring your bell.

And, long for love, the hearts of men retell
Your gentle violin's unsettling story,
And plaited into dreams, incantatory,
Are moons of past years time cannot dispel.

Your humid light and misty shadows pair
Along the marble walls, the floor, the stair
And, resting there, share turquoise shade.

A leaf of plane's then more indented, pristine,
And thinner's made a twisted vine of jade...
Oil lamp of dreams, of all conceptions mistress!

2.

Oil lamp of dreams! Of all conceptions mistress!
Our reveries and souls you annex,
Enticing, changing, melt the sealing wax
Off innocence; inspire with your whispers

The expectation tremble of hugs and kisses,
The stargazer and shepherd you perplex
And step in a himation of flax
Into his cave, a visitor capricious,

Caress the sea to calm an angry storm,
O goddess of the shadowy and silent,
But depths of depths you rather stir excited,

Surge water masses, mothers' bellies warm
And cause the belts of dresses fall untwisted.
O crystal ball of magic irresistible!

3.

O crystal ball of magic irresistible!
O tuning fork of heavens' mellow bronze!
Your wane bestirs Empuses; striking gongs,
They exit caves into the air mistful

To strangle dogs and strain the bloody drizzle
In kraters singing malediction songs.
A feline eye, a panther's spot elongs
And wiggles wings miraculously chiseled.

The flesh of ghosts is woven of your rays,
You polish stones, crumble fired clays;
The stallion and goat, lamb and hound

Of dark bay are your animals as well;
You brew in wine; in poppy you abound,
O queen of waters! Lover of the swell!

4.

O queen of waters! Lover of the swell!
A royal scion traveling alone,
The bloom of bloom! Supernal Yoni throne!
Your monthly birth makes women feel unwell...

But loving you's our chain, our prison cell;
In blurry belly smacks of jellies moan
And foam horses lick the walls of stone
Escaping from the ocean where they dwell.

And sprouts in the depth of mine receiving
The prompt of water flooding and receding
Respond to your ascending to the helm.

The corals of dark pain, volition seaweed
Wake towards you, and from the clay of seeming
So greedily they grow and overwhelm!

5.

So greedily they grow and overwhelm
From wet and deep; the mortal, tired, slicky,
All creepy fluids, ichor, gore and liquor,
All apparitions henbane smells unveil,

The opium-like, stirring dreams off trail,
The feminine, the temporal, the leaky,
The rooted in the dark, the sinful, sneaky
That human flesh resists to no avail.

The virgin ground wounded by the plow,
Blood ferment vapors' suffocating blow,
The Ocean barred in riverbeds of veins,

The turbid clay of strangled lovingnesses,
To you - what made me - made it through me - strains
Enduring through my crowns of thorny thistles.

6.

Enduring through my crowns of thorny thistles,
Deep flowers climb. You lit the candle of lust
In bodies' chapels; made the spirit trust
The manic flesh. You cut the rift abysmal

Between once friends, the brothers and the sisters,
So everyone is claiming their part...
Oh, let me throw myself - surrendered - past!
The stronger will's, the tighter hurt its scissors...

The horn is leering from behind the rocks,
Descending, in a scarlet, blood, merlot dress,
I see you come... Bicorn! Three-visaged! Gogless!

Off every graveyard, every road fork
The smoke of dark offerings appears -
To pale Diana, Hecate the Fierce!

7.

To pale Diana, Hecate the Fierce,
Surrendering, I stretch my hands and pleas,
"By struggle and anger drained, I seek release;
Reveal your face as misty agate clears!"

Hence come you, crimson, thunders shaking spheres
Of underground, tread on coffin lids,
Tricephala, and carry Future seeds,
Two torches, knives and seals of all frontiers.

Your eyes are radiating death and dark.
At road corners startled hounds bark
And smoky lamps are lit at cemeteries,

And in the lakes of deepness wake and swell
Exuding poison drops like purple berries
The serpent dreams from your undrunken well.

8.

The serpent dreams from your undrunken well
Corrode us with disquietude and worry.
"As gods shall be" - temptation of the glory
Has etched our hearts with acid not to quell.

The brand of sin's been on us since we fell,
The running iron at the heavens' doorway,
And on our paths - that stray like scattered straw lay -
The branded face of Moon to toll our knell.

For centuries of centuries the onus
Of sore and somber body weighed upon us,
A planet homeless, a crown jewel torn.

That bare light, that dim and distant grievance
Of scars and ulcers patiently worn
Both bittersweet and paralyzing grim is.

9.

Both bittersweet and paralyzing grim is
The shining void of valleys' raving dream.
Basaltic walls were clutching my ravine.
Into the cleft (capaciously greedy!)

Of deep sky ruptured, star grapes poured in rivers.
The disk of sun - a ruler stepping in -
Above the summits' incandescent skin
Appeared fledged - and stretched - and splashed - and grievous.

No twilight here, breeze, oasis, just
Crisp luminance of spars and slates and agates.
No daybreak sleeve, no sunset feather ray gets

Onto the pitch of sky-dome ever cast.
Uneven and disorderly unprim is
The diamond fever of your wrinkly grimace.

10.

The diamond fever of your wrinkly grimace
Torments and burns. Bedazzled vision locks
On granite gloss, calligraphy of rocks,
The complex arcs' and bars' and arrows' schemas.

Like bands of snakes, ore veins are spreading sheenous.
Wax lava flows inundate in flocks
And plains pile up like cortex matter faux.
Your three-day noon is arduously zealous -

Fiery blisters blaze in restless pox
Of fierce day; but when away it walks,
High in the darkness, staring at Hipparchus,

The "Volva" stands, still guardian of the nights,
And cautiously and softly, letting sparkles,
Your silica skin fades and reignites.

11.

Your silica skin fades and reignites
The memories of ancient struggle and dare,
Bold breakthroughs and still-captured torments. There,
Inscribing double signs of fire and ice,

The whirlwind fell that rolled the primal dice.
From Sea of Storms to Lake of Dreams aflare,
From either elongated shadows' lair
That's never seen the sunlight set or rise

To fortress rings of Mare Tenebrarum
All burst of fury, and a heavy scar on
Your cramping cheek, the Montes Alpes range,

The heavens' halberd left. Your silent passion
Is that of Earth but scalped in sheer rage,
A Fear's face in space, forlorn and ashen!

12.

A Fear's face in space, forlorn and ashen,
Chimeras' potter's field, forever shunned,
A shard of broken Chalice - far beyond
The verge of time, of memory, of measure,

Since off the angels' choir of the azure,
Against the Builder of the orbs rotund,
The Morning Star rebelled, the serpent-tonged
Dark ruler of the Zenith and the Nadir.

Dead lumps of "be" with death he carved and clashed
And stroke the fire of Self from flint of flesh
Within us; fledged our spirit worth amazement -

But trampled down was with his allies;
Hence you're a world not built's deserted basement,
A wail of pain eternalized in ice!

13.

A wail of pain eternalized in ice,
Pain, pride and anger tangled sans remission,
A wingless flap of one infinite mission,
A star condemned to starve and agonize,

A knot of stubborn minds' restraining ties,
A Grail of Struggle with tart magnesium mix-in,
The Calvary of soul crucifixion
Thou shalt remain until the end of times.

Cognize O dead the Hell's determination,
"With slow poison I decay the patient
Flesh in the earth and souls at the moon."

To suck the lifeblood off those in sedation,
Around the Earth you're spinning your cocoon,
A hungry corpse of an unborn creation!

14.

A hungry corpse of an unborn creation
To living Earth abiding shackle-chained,
With struggle and rebellion we are maimed;
Our wine is mixed with salt and chrism with ashes.

But on the Judgment day the revelation
Will dress us both, the mistress and the maid,
And quiet surf of captive suns belayed
Will splash beside the tired feet of Yeshu.

But narrow's our marriage ring. On us
You keep your eyes subduedly downcast
But turn aside the face we'll never know,

Profundity I awingly refrain
From questioning - but in great silence bow,
O quiet pearl of heavens' quiet realm!


Original: silveragepoetry.blogspot.com/2016/03/lunaria.html
See also: ru.wikisource.org/wiki/Lunaria_(Волошин)
Master page: allpoetry.com/poem/13119064